As she spoke she struck the ground with her foot, and fell, clinging to two swaying stalks, which bent under her and then sprang up again, scattering their fragrant blossom over her hair. As Luck of the Bean-rows watched her with delight—and I assure you I would have been delighted too—she pierced him with her bright eyes, and he was so spell-bound in the maze of her smile that he would have been happy to die watching her. At the least he might have been still standing there had she not spoken. [Illustration: [Boy]] “I have delayed you too long already,” she said, “for I know what a stirring business the trade in beans must be just at present; but my carriage—or rather your carriage—will enable you to recover the time you have lost. Please do not hurt my feelings by refusing so slight a gift. I have a thousand carriages like it in the corn-lofts of the castle, and when I would like a new one I pick it out of a handful and throw the rest to the mice.” “The least of your highness’s favours would be the pride and joy of my life,” replied the Luck of the Bean-rows, “but you have forgotten that I have luggage. I can easily imagine that however closely my bean measures may be filled I could manage to find room for your carriage in one of them, but to get my measures into your carriage, that would be impossible.” [Illustration: [Princess]] “Try it,” laughed the princess as she swung up and down on the sprays of the sweet peas; “try it, and do not stand amazed at everything, as if you were a little child who had seen nothing.” And indeed Luck of the Bean-rows had no difficulty in getting his three quart measures into the body of the carriage—it could have held thirty and more, and he felt rather mortified. “I am ready to start, madam,” he said, as he took his place on a plump cushion, which was large enough to let him sit comfortably in any position, or even to lie at full length if he had been so minded. “I owe it to my kind parents,” he continued, “not to leave them in suspense as to what has become of me this first time of my ever leaving them; so I am waiting only for your coachman, who fled, no doubt in terror at the outbreak of the king of the crickets, and took the horses and shafts with him. I shall then leave this spot with everlasting regret that I should have seen you without hope of ever seeing you again.” The princess did not appear to notice the marked feeling of the Luck’s last words. “Why,” she said, “my carriage does not need either coachman, shafts, or horses; it goes by steam, and at any hour it can easily do fifty thousand miles. You see you will have no trouble in getting home whenever it suits you. You have just to remember the gesture and words with which I start it.